Fino’s lessons in customer service continue, while at the same time Raul begins to have some doubts about the career choice he has made.
What They Say:
Episode 02: “The Demon Lord’s Daughter is Going to Learn How to Speak to Customers”
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Okay, the official title card now reads “Yu Sibu,” so I guess I’ll go with that version from now on.
So, as we learn from Raul and one of his neighbors this morning, it was only a hundred years ago that they discovered how to turn magic into energy to run technology. Thus, a relatively recent change in their lives. As for life changes, at the store Raul continues to try to teach Fino the finer points of customer service…and continues to fail at it. It comes to the point where he has to write down the standard lines fed to customers on her hand so that she will know what to say (what she ended up saying when trying to imitate Raul began to get rather laughable).
Raul’s inability to get through to Fino begins to wear him down. At one point he is reminded of his dream of becoming a Hero, a dream that cannot come true any longer as far as he knows. Things get worse when he happens to come across his old rival from the Hero School, “All A” (probably a nickname, but we know that she is Airi Alternate, though we haven’t heard her name spoken just yet; it gets mentioned later in the episode). Their brief meeting is filled with tension, as Airi is displeased for some reason (disappointment in Raul?) while Raul is filled with a certain amount of shame and disappointment in himself, seeing Airi again now.
It’s not all angst this episode: the comic relief comes from Fino having to deal with a thief while Raul is off on his lunch break. Fino, of course, does not understand what is happening, so she tries to use her customer service cliches on him (Nova is also in the store, but is busy with a customer and completely oblivious as to the front door drama). Eventually, Raul comes along and once he recognizes the truth of the situation, he lets Fino know that this man (holding a large battleaxe) is not a customer. Fino handles him in fine style.
After work, Raul goes to a get-together with old friends from his Hero School days. While he has found a job, the two of them say that they still intend to be heroes. You can tell that Raul is slightly jealous of his friends’ attitude, and one wonders whether he will give up on the store job. But when he goes back to the store later that night, he comes across Fino asleep in the staff room where she’s temporarily staying and notices that she had written over and over again in a notebook the stock phrases he asked her to memorize. She wakes up and asks him to test her, in a sense her final test in basic customer service. Fino struggles, but she manages to remember all eight stock phrases. From this, Raul remembers his own learning experience when Viser taught him the basic cliche phrases. So, while Raul has not given up entirely on his desire to be a hero, he also finds renewed motivation to do his current job properly, drawing some inspiration from how hard Fino is trying to do the job well.
This is still a silly fanservice comedy, though they toned down the service a bit compared to the first episode other than a major use of it near the beginning and a rather fanservice-heavy ending animation sequence being introduced with this installment. Beyond that, however, this show has a heart and is not afraid to show it. When Raul most begins to doubt his own choice of career, Fino’s efforts to learn her job properly provide some inspiration for him to renew his own endeavors. When he comes in the next morning in the scene after the ending animation, he also shows concerns when he doesn’t see Fino in the staff room, and Seara says that she is gone. Taking that to mean she quit and is gone for good, Raul is genuinely concerned (for those who might worry, she is not gone, but has found a new digs). While sometimes an overly sentimental streak can be seen as somewhat schmaltzy these days, in the right portions it can work to make a fluffy fanservice comedy like this one more palatable in many ways. Fino’s cheerful attitude and the general sunny disposition of this show make it feel far less off-putting or exploitative than many fanservice fests can be.
In Summary:
This show continues to be light and fluffy, though the fanservice is a touch less than in was in the opening episode (though it’s still there). Interestingly, the show is beginning to develop a serious mentoring relationship between Raul and Fino, as her efforts to get better at her job end up helping Raul get over his own internal conflict between his dream to be a hero and his reality of being in a much more modest career. Oddly touching in its way. Old friends also come into the scene and it will be interesting to see how Raul’s old Hero School colleagues will react to learning that he’s now working with the daughter of the former Demon Lord.
Episode Grade: A-
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Apple iMac with 4GB RAM, Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard
